Zoo Rhyme

The zebra are watching with interest
Cloaked in their black and white stripes

The parrots are excited and chatting
"I think there'll be trouble, oh cripes!"

The camels are watching but placid
Too much excitement can make their humps sag

And the cause of all this kerfuffle?
The lion's missus is having a nag...

Blackpool Zoo

On Friday we met up with David and Jeannie and we all went to spend the day at Blackpool Zoo. It was a gorgeous day and a brilliant day out. We spent 5 hours at the zoo and had a great time. It would have cost a fortune in the days of films and developing costs!

End of words - photo flood follows. In the interests of space I've kept it strictly to one photo of each animal. You'll find the others at Flickr. There's 125 photos altogether.

Meerkat

Lioness and Cubs

Giant Tortoise

The Clicky Monster!

Giraffe

Rhea

Llama

Sea Lion with 3-Day-Old Pup

King Colobus Monkey

Black Faced Spider Monkey

Orang Utan

Red Panda

Zebra

Flamingoes

Pelicans

Goats

Ring Tailed Lemur

Lizard

Iguana

Baby Donkey

Zebra Joke

Back in the 1980s I used to freelance photos and articles to magazines a lot. A regular place to visit was Blackpool Zoo which gave me the chance of lots of photos that could be used for caption competitions of which there were (and probably still are) lots of examples in all kinds of publications.

This one was featured in the womens' magazine Annabel I also had similar photos published in She, in the Club Canon members magazine and even in the magazine of a photo develop and processing company. This one was always one of my favourites though, if for no other reason than you seldom see a zebra yawning. My favourite caption? "Silly ass! You left your pyjamas on!"

"Pssst! Don't tell anyone I told you this but..." Actually the raised foot belongs to the parrot at the back. I wasn't so lucky!

"Where shall we go today?"